


Domestic Engineer

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Pineapple Express (2008)
Genre: Baking, Drug Dealing, Falling In Love, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Domestic Engineer," because "housewife" implies there may be wives at other locations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domestic Engineer

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the movie. Warning for cuteness.

When Dale returns home, he's in no mood to find what he finds. He makes a "blech" sound in the general direction of the mess in his living room and shakes his head. He cleans himself up in the shower, dresses, and passes out on his sheet-less bed.

«»

When he wakes up, he finds that he's bled through the bandage over his ear and has no idea what to do about it.

He's positive the ER nurse gave him instructions but he can't even recall what time he left the building or where Saul went or even if Red was still alive when he left. And he should call that investigator back, but he can't hold a phone over his ear without being in pain and he can't keep from being in pain if he doesn't have a joint to spark.

He has no weed left in his kitchen stash and he doesn't like holding his phone on the other ear, so fuck it. He should go get his car or do one of the other 100 pieces of shit he has to do, but fuck it. He should feed himself, but fuck it. He flips his couch back over and sits.

Reconsidering everything, he is actually more of a mess than the rest of his apartment. The place had been thrown just about as evenly as Saul's had, but his contained less stuff in the first place. All-in-all, his was a manageable mess.

The stuffing had been left in the couch. His DVDs had been left in order. Strangely enough someone had used his floss. Maybe the same juvenile someone in his complex who had noticed his door was open, came in, and stole his GameCube. The X-Box 360 had been left and he wondered why, but felt lucky.

He plugged it back in. It red-ringed. There was a crusty stain on one side. Probably the bong had dumped down on top of it. Sure enough he found the pipe across the room.

The mustard had splattered artfully across the kitchen tiles, the sliding door out to his tiny patio had spidered when a computer speaker had been chucked into it.

He straightened some of it up, half-heartedly. The moment he started to break into a sweat he quit again.

Then he headed over to Saul's place.

«»

As he walked up, Saul Silver was cheerily waving off two frat boys who were leaving with his couch. The thing had been shredded randomly and was choking out its insides. When he followed Saul in, the apartment was nearly barren.

"Phi Beta Ming or something, I donno," he said, waving a hand in the direction the frat boys had gone. "The truth is, a lot of my crap is really old. They gave me more than it was worth. S'ok, though, I dropped the price of their hash a little."

He'd said something about feng shui, but ended up living in Dale's apartment within the month, anyway.

«»

So Saul stays in the apartment throughout the day like the best, most useful housewife ever.

This is horrible, Dale thinks, but so absolutely true.

To start off, he does two things all day: Saul cleans the place and Saul makes lists. Like entire detailed, weighed and measured LISTS of what's needed in the apartment, from groceries to smoking supplies to cleaning supplies to fucking baking supplies. 

Honest to God baking, we're talking here, not just the kind he sells in brownie form to curious teens. More like, he gets bored... and bakes.

He calls Saul 'Suzie Homemaker,' but then Saul just smiles and ices the name onto a cake. Dale honestly didn't know his oven even worked.

«»

So Saul sits and bakes all day, and, well, _bakes_ , too.

He didn't tell anyone where he was moving, with the exception of a few, trusted regulars. Through them and through Dale's neighbors, Saul begins setting up new contacts. He gets his hands on a new supply of bud in very short order and soon he's chalking up nothing but profits again.

And baking. Baking like mad and cooking three square meals a day and cleaning and making lists. And then when he's finally through making lists, he loads a backpack with the bulk of his product.

He takes this to his elderly customers who can't get around so well and he usually goes during "nap time" these days so he doesn't have to hear about forty miles of walking in the snow in 1945 or anything. He used to love that shit, but now that he's rebuilding a business and a reputation, and now in a more serious manner, it feels harder to waste his money by sparing his time. His bubbeh doesn't notice any difference in him, though, and that's pretty much all that's important.

He plans to hit up his seed supplier last, after the grocery shopping and everything.

But it turns out that he almost buys too much at the superstore to fit into a cab, and he's kind of embarrassed and such. He has to make a second trip out to his seed guy.

 

He explains the plan: the local kingpin is out of the game. The Asians are left, sure, but he's not going to move in on their game. He's just going to keep selling weed. Only he wants to sell the best weed in the game. The finest buds below the 49th parallel.

He sets up a plan, he empties all the last of the stuff out of his old apartment and securely covers up each window in it. He orders special lamps and light bulbs online and has new locks put on the door.

But he always stops work around 11 and heads back to the apartment. He is always home to feed Dale lunch.

«»

Dale is incredibly grateful to get his job back. So grateful that he never even spares a thought about losing it and quickly gets back around to being just mildly annoyed by it.

But he can still ride a high all day, all over town. People get angry at him all day and it just slides off into the haze. And now he can come home for lunch because, inevitably, Saul will be doing complicated, magical things with his stove. Seriously.

Coffee is there every morning by the time he falls out of bed. He has an incentive to take a shower every single workday because by the time he gets out of the bathroom there's a full breakfast waiting for him. Mostly Saul even has dinner ready by the time he gets home in the evening.

 

For his part, Saul gets a little distracted along the way when he realizes he's waiting on Dale hand and foot and then, of course, realizes why.

But he only freaks out a little - at a designated time of day, when Dale is off being all blue-collarly - and tries to cry a little but can't. So he makes Dale dinner like there's nothing wrong.

«»

He also makes breakfast in the morning and sits on the kitchen counter with his head resting back against the cabinets, waiting to see Dale off for the day. He is fresh out of the shower, swinging his naked feet a little, determined to have a pleasant day.

Saul's in that very place, eating syrupy pancakes with his fingers, when Dale comes in after his own shower, his hair is still dark wet, face still tired and yawning.

Dale notes how Saul looks ridiculously precious there, sunnily humming to himself, heels bouncing off the cabinet doors.

Saul insists that Dale eat before he leaves, even though Dale is being mostly dawdley and not caring if he heads out on time and Saul is a little more distracted by his own thoughts than he felt he ought to be so early. He watches over Dale as he eats and laughs at cartoons. He tries not to alter his outward behavior but suddenly realizes that he's slap bang in the middle of a doe-eyed wibble. Like, apparently he has a crush on Dale and it's not going to go away. Not so long as Dale is shoving pancakes in his face and flashing that all-out indulgent, happy grin at him.

Despite his best effort, when Dale drops his plate back off in the sink and he has syrup all around his lips, Saul grabs his face and leans down and kisses and sucks his sweet mouth.

There isn't any freaking out on Dale's part right at that moment, just the intense feeling of himself standing between Saul's knees, all close and warm, and eventually reaching out to grip both of Saul's thighs to bring them both closer together.

Saul thinks it might actually be a good idea to get Dale off before he goes to work, but instead grips Dale's head and offers a good-bye kiss and sends him on his way, wordlessly.

Dale, being not so well compartmentalized as Saul, spends mostly the whole rest of the day freaking out.

«»

He almost doesn't get his work done and he DEFINITELY doesn't go home for lunch, but of course, by now he's already so unconsciously possessed that he actually has to call home to tell Saul not to make anything.

This brings Saul down only slightly. He realizes he can entertain a dealer friend of his, instead. He invites Chuck and three of Chuck's girlfriends (hoes, he always forgets) over for lunch. He makes some seriously superb salmon.

He tries not to plan anything for dinner, figuring he's scared Dale off and won't see him until he asks Saul to move out tomorrow morning.

«»

Dale hasn't smoked all day and for lunch he had beer and nachos at a victim's bar before serving them their papers. He doesn't do any more drinking and surprises himself by tidying up a little before going home.

He is quietly disappointed when he isn't greeted at the door with a kiss, but he doesn't say anything. It was probably pretty stupid to make that assumption in the first place.

Of course, Saul is hard at work on the last addition to a late-late supper. He has exciting stories to tell about his day. He has to tell Dale about his growing plot. And he's all ready to start chatting on about exciting stuff when, mid-word, he quietly realizes this all hinges on his staying with Dale or not. He can't set up an entire grow house in his old apartment if Dale kicks him out tomorrow.

He goes silent, cutting himself off. He flashes an awkward smile at Dale, instead, setting down the dishes on the middle of the table and sliding quietly into his chair.

Dale notices because Dale isn't completely retarded, thanks very much.

"You looked really excited," he says, dishing up his half of the noodles. "Anything interesting happen today?"

It was a fine prompt and all but of course the first fucking interesting thing that happened in Saul's day was Dale, so he blanks on a reply and shrugs like an idiot.

Dale quietly drops his fork in his spaghetti and focuses entirely on Saul. "Um. Is something wrong?"

Saul makes absent little stabbing motions at his meatballs and shrugs again. Sighs. Mumbles, "Well. I have incredibly shit timing."

"Saul?"

Dale watches his face crumble and then blubbery confessions start pouring out of him. Bad timing, he says, just bad timing and he wasn't hitting on Dale for a sugar daddy or anything, he really, genuinely loves him. It sounds stupid, really, really. But now that he wants to ask to stay forever, he just doesn't know what to do. He's been so busy lately and now there is so much ahead of him to do. He starts freaking out with Dale right there in front of him which only intensifies how horrible he feels and just when he thinks he's actually going to cry this time, Dale is right there kneeling in front of him telling him not to freak out, that it's gonna be okay.

"Look, when I said 'bff,' man, I meant for forever, okay? I fucking well meant it. I'm not going to toss you out, okay?"

"Okay," Saul says quietly, eyes still brimming with tears, still looking miserable.

"Honestly," Dale continues, "this morning was so hot I didn't know what to do with myself for the rest of the day."

Saul just looks at him. Nearly blank.

Dale stays there, kneeling. Pulls Saul's hands into his and makes Saul face him fully.

"I understand bad timing. So slow down on the freaking out."

And Saul *clings* to him, tears, spaghetti sauce and all and now Dale finally knows what to do with himself: he's just going to let this happen. Maybe they both need it and he was willing to be Saul's, well, 'BFFF' before he was willing to commit to anything more than a passing relationship with Angie.

Saul accidentally knees him in the stomach as he crumples down into Dale's arms. Eventually it's so funny they have to laugh, clinging to each other on Dale's now impeccably clean kitchen floor.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own nor did I create any of the characters from Pineapple Express. I'm not profiting from this fic in any way and don't intend any harm by it.


End file.
